The United States Marshals Service's Workforce Planning and Management (Redacted for Public Release)

Audit Report 07-38
July 2007
Office of the Inspector General

Chapter 1: Introduction

Since its establishment in 1789, the United States Marshals Serviceís (USMS) primary role has been to support the federal judicial process. Since 1960, several new functions have been assigned to the USMS, such as seized asset management and protection and security of witnesses. These new functions have significantly broadened the overall mission of the USMS and added to its management complexity. This broad overall mission presents significant workforce planning and management challenges. It is therefore important for the USMS to have a strong workforce management plan.

According to the USMS Director, the USMSís highest mission priority is judicial security, which includes physically protecting courthouses, judges, and other court employees. The next highest priority after judicial security is the apprehension of fugitives. According to the Director, fugitive apprehension tasks can sometimes be delayed to allow the USMS to make short-term resource adjustments for the sake of more emerging matters.

Exhibit 1-1 lists the current mission areas and related activities of the USMS, including each organizational unit within the USMS that is primarily responsible for handling these various functions.

USMS headquarters, located in Arlington, Virginia, provides direction and oversight for the 94 USMS district offices.16 USMS headquarters is divided into five operational and four management and administrative divisions.17 Each division utilizes input from individual U.S. Marshals in developing the strategic objectives, management policies, and operational protocol for its respective mission area. While USMS headquarters provides oversight and assistance to each of the 94 district offices, each Presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed U.S. Marshal traditionally operates with a significant level of autonomy. The following organizational chart highlights the USMSís divisions and lines of authority.

EXHIBIT 1-2
USMS ORGANIZATIONAL CHART

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Source: USMS

USMS Workforce Composition

To accomplish its various responsibilities, the USMS utilizes a combination of employees and contractors. Based on our review of USMS data for personnel on board as of September 15, 2006, the USMS employed 4,593 personnel, with 3,506 of them assigned to its district offices and 1,087 to headquarters.18 The USMSís core operational staff consists of Detention Enforcement Officers (DEO), Deputy U.S. Marshals (DUSM), and Criminal Investigator Deputy U.S. Marshals (CIDUSM). The responsibilities and grade structure of these positions are as follows:

Deputy United States Marshalsí responsibilities include supervising prisoners during court proceedings and assisting CIDUSMs with more complex investigative duties. DUSMs are graded GS-5 through GS 11.

The USMS budgets for and allocates its positions using two basic categories: operational and administrative. In general, the operational staff performs law enforcement activities, while the administrative staff performs support functions. Exhibit 1-3 presents the composition of USMS operational and administrative employees within district offices and headquarters.

EXHIBIT 1-3DISTRIBUTION OF OPERATIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE EMPLOYEES

District Offices

Headquarters

Source: OIG analysis of USMS data for personnel onboard as of September 15, 2006

The USMS utilizes Court Security Officers (CSO), who are contract employees with at least 3 years of prior law enforcement experience, to provide security at courthouses and federal buildings housing court operations. The USMS also utilizes other contract employees for duties such as prisoner detention and transportation, securing prisoners in court, and seized asset management. In total, the USMS expended over $264.6 million in FY 2005 to procure the services of more than 6,390 full-time and part time contractors.1 The USMSís overall budget was $801.7 million in fiscal year (FY) 2006.

Prior Reports

The Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) previously reviewed various programs and management areas of the USMS that pertain in some way to this review. For example, the OIG audited the USMSís use of independent contractors as guards and identified issues regarding their utilization.20 In addition, the OIG audited the USMSís Prisoner Tracking System (PTS) and recommended that the USMS implement policies to enhance the integrity of the data contained in this system.21 The OIG also reviewed the USMSís Judicial Security process and found that it failed to assess the majority of reported threats against the judiciary in a timely manner.22 Additionally, the OIG reviewed the USMSís effort to apprehend violent fugitives and reported that while the USMS apprehended more violent fugitives, both overall and per staff, the proportion of its apprehensions that involved violent fugitives did not change significantly.23 Due to the large volume of material, a more detailed discussion of each of these reviews is contained in Appendix IV.

Audit Approach

The objectives of this audit were to determine whether the USMS:

adequately designed, tested, and implemented a workforce management plan that sufficiently assesses its human resources and capacity requirements based on current and expected workloads;

evaluates, monitors, and corrects, if necessary, its personnel utilization to ensure it directs appropriate resources to its highest priorities and achieves its organizational objectives;

has sufficiently addressed pay compensation issues, including job-grade and career progression; and

has provided adequate and appropriate training to its operational employees.

To accomplish these audit objectives, we interviewed more than 60 USMS headquarters officials, including the Director, as well as officials with DOJís Justice Management Division (JMD), regarding the budget process, USMS budget submissions, and issues related to human capital management. In addition, we reviewed USMS internal documentation, such as manuals, planning materials, internal directives and policies, and financial reports. We also obtained and analyzed empirical data for fiscal years (FY) 2000 through 2005 related to the USMSís resource allocation, utilization, and workload. Finally, we conducted fieldwork at seven USMS district offices Ė the Central District of California, D.C. Superior Court, District of Rhode Island, Northern District of Illinois, Southern District of Florida, Southern District of New York, and Western District of Texas. In general, the scope of our audit covered the period of FYs 2000 through 2005. However, in certain instances we expanded our scope to include FY 2006 information.

For the seven district offices in which we conducted fieldwork, we reviewed documentation, including local policies, planning materials, reports, and files applicable to our review. Additionally, we discussed each districtís mission and activities with district representatives, such as the U.S. Marshal, Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal, CIDUSMs, and DUSMs. In total, we interviewed approximately 120 field personnel.

The results of our review are detailed in Chapters 2 through 5 of this report and the audit scope and methodology are presented in Appendix I. In Chapter 2, we assess the USMSís resource planning efforts, including its strategic planning and development of mathematical models to identify its personnel needs. Chapter 3 examines the USMSís efforts to evaluate and monitor its performance by analyzing its resource utilization and workload. Chapter 4 discusses the career progression and related matters of USMS operational personnel. In Chapter 5, we describe the training provided to USMS operational employees and evaluate the adequacy of this training.

Footnotes

See Appendix III for the geographical boundaries of the USMSís district offices.

Certain headquarters-level components are located outside of USMS headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. For instance, the USMS Training Academy is located at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) in Glynco, Georgia, and the USMS Tactical Operations Center is stationed at Camp Beauregard, Louisiana.

According to the USMS, many of the employees who are designated as headquarters employees, such as Inspectors detailed to regional fugitive task forces, members of the USMS Special Operations Group, and all Training Academy officials, are physically located throughout the United States, not at USMS headquarters.

The USMS could not provide us with an exact number of contract personnel because it does not track the number of personnel provided through some national contracts.

Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General. United States Marshals Serviceís Use of Independent Contractors as Guards, Audit Report 05-24, May 2005.

Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General. Review of the United States Marshals Service Prisoner Tracking System, Audit Report 04-29, August 2004.

Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General. Review of the United States Marshals Service Judicial Security Process, Report I-2004-004, March 2004. The OIG is currently performing a follow-up review of this matter.

Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General. Review of the United States Marshals Service Apprehension of Violent Fugitives, Report I-2005-008, July 2005.